Our Thoughts On Interviewing Dave Smith, Hasan Piker, Sam Harris and Ben Shapiro

24:08you're seeing that there was a whole big blow up with the heritage foundation that there's basically a battle being fought on the american right over what it means to be on the right whether basically neo-fascist ideas are welcome in the movement it's kind of a worrying situation

24:24Francis Foster:of itself but i don't think it's as ideological as it is a frustrated group of young men who've been shat on the entire adult and teenage lives told that they're the worst of everything and And it's interesting because a friend of mine messaged me and said, well, you guys keep talking about, you know, men have had a bad deal. But I think back 30 or 40 years, boys in the education system, if they didn't sit still and didn't behave, they'd get beaten. Right. They'd get physically punished. And I explained to her because I think the sexual dynamics here are important that for a young man, being hit is nowhere near as bad as being humiliated.

25:02and what the generation of young men coming up now have been through is their entire life

25:09Francis Foster:they've heard that their group everyone else is great if you're a black trans lesbian you are on the pedestal and you are to be celebrated right if you are a young white man you are literally a piece of shit and you are at the bottom of the hierarchy and you need to step aside and by the way, it's important to say, it may well be true that, historically speaking, women have had a raw deal in society. I don't know if it's exactly true in the way that, you know, crazy feminists think it is, but I think there's some truth to that, historically speaking. But it was never the fault of 15-year-old Zoomers.

25:46Francis Foster:They neither created that system nor benefited from it. They've grown up in the system where they've been the punching bag and the punchline. And this, to me, was one of the main reasons why we push back against wokeness, progressivism, whatever it is that you want to call that movement. Because for me, there was even when they were talking about issues that I thought, actually, you've got a point. It was done in a spirit that I found profoundly, profoundly worrying, because it was done with the air of somebody wanting revenge. And the problem is, as Gandhi said, an eye for an eye and the world will soon be blind.

26:24because if you enact revenge on someone, particularly someone who doesn't deserve it, hasn't done anything wrong, and you've punished them, particularly men, once they grow up, you know what they're going to want? They're going to want revenge. And that's what you've got going on right now. Yeah. And it's like, all right, you've made me feel miserable. You've told me that I'm not worth anything. You have demeaned me. You've smeared me. You've laughed at me. You've humiliated me. You know what, princess? it's time for yours. And that's what's happened. And that's what we're seeing now. And that's why you are seeing, I think, on the left and right, you know, movements that are

27:03Francis Foster:becoming bigger and bigger that literally have zero constructive agenda whatsoever. There's no constructive agenda to them. I mean, if you think about this thing that's happening on the right, really, and, you know, this is a debate that's important to have, is the people who are trying to push all these horrific ideas into the mainstream of the right, they are not helping the Republicans who are currently in charge to deliver the things that the American electorate voted for. They are, in fact, making it easier for a Democrat to come in and to reopen the border as one of the many other things that will happen in reaction to this.

27:42Francis Foster:So what you have is you simply have groups of people who now view pulling everything down and destroying everything as the only thing worth doing. And there's many reasons for that. Number one, because you get a sheer visceral thrill out of destroying something. Everyone does. You kick in a window. You get a little bit of excitement. I've never done it, man. I'm middle class. But you know, you do something, you kick in a window, whatever, you get a little bit of adrenaline, you get a little burst. But there's something more profound to it. It's so much easier to pull something down, to break something, to desecrate, to mock, than it is to build something up, to create something, to be of genuine worth in the world.

28:26Because when you build something, as you know that we do, as many other people do, or even people who go to work every day and they do a job to the best of their ability, it's hard. It's not glamorous. Even people going, oh, but you're on YouTube. 98.9 % of this, there is not glamour to it. It is a grind like every other business. And it's hard. And you get up and you go, right, we've got to sort this out. We've got to do this. You've got to be on the phone to them. We've got to go here. You've got to do... Because that's... We're victims. Yeah. Because that's what it needs. That's what it needs.

28:59But we talked about this in a conversation with Dana. Like, we've been at this for seven and a half years. And almost the entirety of that time, you spend, forgive me for the metaphor, but I think it's exactly appropriate, eating shit. Yeah. Hearing no, no, no, no. I mean, Dana himself, we've been trying to get him on the show for like two years. And he's a busy guy. The fact that he came on now is like a testament both to his openness,

29:22Francis Foster:but also to our tenacity and trying to get him on. And every other interview we've done, it's been a process of every single guest, almost, is a process of either you have to work really hard to get him on, or you have to work really hard to get big enough that they want to come on themselves. So it's nonstop hard work. it's a lot easier to just complain. It's a lot easier to go on the internet, be incendiary, and say, oh, we should do this, burn this, pull this down, get rid of this. This person is bad, this person is wrong, this person is evil. And look, we've criticized a lot of people, but we're always coming at it from a constructive place.

29:59What we're trying to say is we're brilliant. We are. We're brilliant. Thank you. By the way, spending more and more time in America, I start to realize that all these sarcastic jokes, they don't get it. I don't think a lot of them get it. So if you're American, we're not saying we're brilliant. No, what we're saying is we are brilliant, but we're also British, so we pretend that we're not saying it. I remember there was one quite awkward moment a few months ago when I was like, yeah, we're brilliant. And this guy went, yeah, you are. And I went, no, we're not. I mean, oh God, no. And they just like that awkward Britishness thing came and it's kind of a...

30:31Yeah. Anyway, but and what the reason we approach the Dana into the way we did, and I hope people get this, is trying to send a positive message to young men to go, look, you can still achieve. There are things that you can do if you strive, if you believe, if you have ambition, if you know where you want to go, if you're prepared to work really hard, you can achieve something. Don't go down the other path. Because while you may feel good at the time, it's like scratching eczema. It may feel good at the time, but it's only going to make you feel worse. It's only going to inflame. I don't think young men are going to particularly listen to us, if I'm honest, or even to Dana necessarily.

31:16But what they will find out as time goes on is just like being woke wasn't fulfilling.

31:22Francis Foster:And if you look at woke people, they're absolutely miserable. the people who are going down the route of bitterness and resentment on the right, they will discover that it doesn't lead you anywhere. It doesn't lead you to the place that makes you happy. It doesn't like, look at some of the people who are at the top of this. None of them have a family. None of them have kids. None of them have a partner. None of them have the things that actually make life meaningful. I mean, before we started the conversation with Dana, we talked about how kids are the best thing ever, right? And anyone who becomes a parent will tell you now look kids don't make you happy in and of themselves what kids tend to do i saw a great post from our former guest sarah hayder who said what kids do is they they expand the range of emotions you get to feel so on the upside you now have levels of happiness that were unattainable previously on the downside you have levels of you know horror and fear and misery that also weren't available to you potentially but meaning comes from from the connections you make with other people from having a family, from having friends.

32:25It doesn't come from being angry and sort of attacking people that you don't agree with. It comes from building things. I mean, this is one of the things I think that made Charlie Coke such a special person

32:40Francis Foster:in many people's eyes is he built an institution that was actually affecting change in the world in the way that he believed it. Whereas if all you're doing is tearing things down, you're going to very quickly find that it's an incredibly shallow, miserable and disappointing path to go down in your life. Let me introduce you to the people I work with to protect my family against financial instability, inflation and turmoil. For me, one of the best ways to safeguard your wealth is by investing in gold. And that's why I trust the Pure Gold Company. Here's a smart tip. If you buy UK-minted gold coins like Sovereigns, you won't pay VAT when you buy them or capital gains tax when you sell.

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33:59It's reassuring to know that even if the banking system falters, your gold and its value remain safe. Whether you're looking to diversify your investments, protect your savings or just gain the security of owning a real physical asset, we highly recommend the Pure Gold Company. Click the link in the description or go to pure-gold.co.trigger to get your free copy of the investor guide. That's pure-gold.co.trigger. Take control of your financial future today. Yeah, and I hope young men start to realize that because we say it all the time, but we can't carry on like this. if the people in your life if the people who you follow are destructive are angry and miserable who are highly conspiratorial they're not going to lead you to where you want to be because look as somebody everyone can have a drink who's taught kids I remember when people were saying to me oh some kids you know they don't want to learn they don't want to do no one wants to be a failure there is no single person in life who goes you know what I want to do I want to fail at everything Oh, you know my dreams, which we've all got, I don't want to achieve them.

35:09I don't want to have money. I don't want to have a nice house. I don't want to have a partner or a spouse that I love. That's not true. Everybody wants to succeed. And what's really important is that we actually realize that if you want to succeed, you need to have a positive message. You need to be inspired. You need to be inspirational to others. That's the only way to achieve things. That's the only way to drive yourself forward. And by doing that, drive other people forward around you. And then if there is enough of a chain reaction, being able to mobilize your town, then the city, then your district, your state, and then a country.

35:48But the other way, if we go down this other path, this will lead to a desperate, dark, broken place. And we just can't have it. We can't have it because if nothing else, for yourselves and your family, do you want to live in that? I don't. I don't. Well, I mean, as part of one of the problems, I think, for the young people, young men in particular who feel this frustration is they don't have a family and they don't have kids and they're not attached to anything and they're just bitter and resentful. But it's just not a sustainable thing. It's not going to work for you if that's the place you're in.

36:25So you're going to have to dig yourself out of that and realize that this isn't leading you anywhere,

36:31Francis Foster:that you actually deep down want to be. I mean, another thing that, you know, this is something we talked about with Ben in our conversation that's happening is obviously there's a far left movement that's also happening. And, you know, one of the things you and I have been talking about for a long time and trying, by the way, to get people on the right to acknowledge is that affordability, particularly of housing, is a gigantic issue. and you can't skirt around that. Now, look, I think Ben made a fantastic point that has been badly misrepresented. He said, if you want to deal with affordability, you have to change the policies.

37:12Francis Foster:But if the policies aren't going to change, you have to, in America, in American history, actually the seeking of opportunity elsewhere is literally America. Yeah. Right? And look at the content creators in our space. Let's take a look, go down the list. Joe Rogan. moved from California to Austin. Why? Because he didn't like what was happening in California. He didn't sit in his basement and whine, did he? Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, they've all moved. Lots and lots and lots of people. I mean, there's lots of people in Austin who have moved to Austin. There's, you know, other people are in Scottsdale, Arizona.

37:51Francis Foster:Like, the reality is that if politicians feel that you are captive in the city in which you live, they're not going to change anything. No. And no matter how many times you elect, you know, far left socialist or communist or whatever who promise you free stuff, they're not going to change anything. They're not going to make housing more affordable because the only way to make housing more affordable is to build more housing. Like President Trump's come out with this 50-year mortgage. Yeah, okay, that's going to help some people buy a house that can't buy a house now, but that's also going to massively inflate prices.

38:22And then a generation from now,

38:24Francis Foster:or not a generation, a few years from now, Again, you're going to be in this position where fewer and fewer people can buy a house. Because as we discussed with Dave, and this is where we really agreed, is asset inflation is making people who don't have assets incredibly, incredibly poor. And there's graphs, including in that recent video I did, showing this. Now, people need to understand, if this does not get addressed, you are going to have absolute chaos in politics. because if young people can't pair up, they can't settle down, they can't have kids, they're going to burn the whole thing down.

39:01And we're starting to see that now. Yeah. We're starting to see that now. And one thing that I find particularly actually really frustrating, and I'm going to be honest, is the right, the right, the way they talk about this, where they talk about people who voted for Zora Mamdani and they're like, oh, they're stupid, they're ignorant, they're lazy, whatever else. And it's like, hang on a second. Hang on a second. You got upset when people on the left said the same thing about Trump supporters. When Trump was addressing very real issues that people in blue collar jobs, left behind towns in the Rust Belt.

39:41We all know the narratives when he was talking to them. And you were angry when the left criticized and mocked them. But now you're mocking people who are moving to the populist left. Can you not see that there's actually more in common with both sides than you might want to pretend? I would quibble with your analogy a little bit, although I think there's a lot of truth to it. But look, President Trump was going to close the border and did.

40:10Francis Foster:Zora Mamdani is not going to solve New York's problems. I'm talking more about how people particularly... Talk about supporters. Yeah, yeah, that's not helpful. Of course it's not. But I do think there's a qualitative difference between these two things. And it's not because I'm pro-Trump and anti-Mamdani, although, you know, I'm no fan of Mamdani, of course. But yeah, no, I take your point. I mean, look, demonizing millions of people for having a different voting preference to you is never smart because you're not going to win any of them over. That said, I mean, look, there's a lot of, there's a lot that's been written about Mamdani's election.

40:44Francis Foster:one of the things that's been pointed out is like Mamdani only did well with people who weren't born in America as a on a group basis and that's another thing which is you know there are there do seem to be quite a lot of people in all of our countries in the west who've come from other places and instead of embracing the things that made the west great they seem to for some reason want to make our countries more like the countries they've come from which i think you and i who've either come or whose parents have come from other places, just really struggled to understand. And one of the great interviews we recorded on this trip was actually about your family's ancestry and country, which was Venezuela.

41:27Francis Foster:We had this great guy called Daniel DiMartino on the show. You absolutely smashed it talking about Venezuela. Yeah, and to me, that was one of the highlights of the trip because, look, I don't mind. Jokes are jokes. Fine. But when you see a country perpetually used as a punchline, and the people never engage, they never actually talk about it honestly. And I think it's really important for people to actually understand what socialism genuinely means. What does it mean to have a country that's socialist? What does it mean to have a country that should actually be the Dubai of South America? Because we're richer than Dubai.

42:07We technically could be richer than Saudi Arabia if we're run properly. But we have socialism. And as a result of that, everything was decimated. The country was plunged into poverty. Nine million people left. Nine million people. And one of the reasons I'm so proud of it was because of the way we handled the conversation, because Daniel was magnificent in the way he put forward and explained what happened in Venezuela. but also because it's, you know, we're so far away now from socialism in what many people experience that to them it's like they're rediscovering this new idea. Hey, you know what?

42:46Maybe the world can be fairer. You know, there won't be poor people. We'll all be equal. And no, that's not how it works. It's a magic trick. You get shown something and you think, isn't this brilliant? And then you get the reveal at the end of it. And the reveal is there is no freedom. There's no free speech. If you criticize the government, you're going to be in jail. And you know what? We're all going to be plunged into desperate, miserable poverty. Sounds like Britain, mate. Well, yeah. But that's the thing that they still have here in America, which is, and it's why I loved our conversation with Dana, and it's why I loved coming here and having conversations.

43:26It's because there is still optimism here. and that is so important and it's so powerful and I know it's what you love about being here of course it's fantastic and you know every time we come here it's not just about having great conversations with fascinating people it's also it changes us every time we're here we become better as interviewers we have better conversations like the way we would have interviewed Hassan

43:50Francis Foster:Piker if we interviewed him after Dave Smith would have been very different yeah and that's because Dave made us better as interviewers. Yeah. You know, the things we engage with here makes us better as interviewers. These might seem like minor details to people, but for fans of the show, these probably are interesting observations. Like Brandon Tatum, Officer Tatum, when we had on, he spoke for 35 minutes uninterrupted in answering our first questions. I dare you to find one interviewer on the internet who would let somebody speak for 35 minutes and say nothing. And the reason we do that is when we've learned that when you have someone who really has something, something to say, a story to tell, you just get out of the way.

44:35Francis Foster:And when you have someone who needs a little help or maybe just speaks in shorter sentences or maybe, you know, you quite haven't quite found the way to get in, then you then then you then we've got to jump in and do our job in a different way. And by the way, we're talking about all the serious stuff. We have some hilarious episodes recorded in this trip. I mean, we had Christina P, James McCann, Jeff Dyke, who was just absolutely incredible. Greg Gutfeld as well. They all smashed them. Those are really interesting but very funny conversations. And that's, again, another thing. You know, it sounds like we're blowing smoke up our own arses here.

45:09Francis Foster:But, like, we've got so much range in the types of... We can do funny. We can do serious. We can do educational. I mean, our conversation with Scott Galloway about masculinity. Our conversation with Nick Freitas about masculinity. Our conversation with James Sexton, the divorce lawyer. It's one of the most powerful things that we've ever experienced sitting across from somebody because he is such a great speaker and has so many interesting things to say, so balanced, but also was willing to go to places emotionally that very often people clam up. So, you know, being here is transformative. And every time we come here, it transforms.

45:47Francis Foster:That's why we love America. We do. We love America because the ambition, the talent, the talent here is incredible. You just, there's some people who just walk in like Daniel, who just come in and they smash it from beginning to end. And you go, you're not even 30. You're not even 30. I didn't like him for that reason. Too good, too young. You know, you're not even 30. And the talent here is incredible. The conversations that you can have here. And you know what I think, and this is good, people are going to roll their eyes, but I do think, I think part of it is the First Amendment. I think it's they have a culture of free speech.

46:25And when you have a culture of free speech, it automatically makes everything that little bit lighter because you know that's the culture. So you can, it's like Dana said in our interview, in the UFC, you can go out and you can make a comment about politics. And you can be as batshit as you want, but it's the First Amendment. It's America. You're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled not to like it, but that's life. Well, that is the attitude. And one of the things we explored with a lot of people is the sort of proclivity for conspiracy. And we talked to a few comedians about that. You know, why are people so interested in that?

46:59I think that's probably the flip side. In that when every opinion is accepted, you know, people are going to come up with some pretty wacky opinions. Yeah. And, you know, it's an interesting place to be because, of course, right now, that conspiratorialness on the right, I think is a real threat to the right electoral success.

47:21Francis Foster:I just, I don't think the American general public, based on our conversations and the people that we speak to, I don't think they're into that. They might enjoy watching somebody, but when it becomes the central thing of the political movement, you know, I just, I don't see that as a winning strategy, particularly when you're bringing in very toxic ideas that a lot of people in this country, thank God, still have a natural aversion to. Look, you've absolutely nailed it. And I think people in politics and I think people in our space and the YouTubers, I think we all need to remember something. Look, we're all highly political people in this little space.

48:01And look, that's fine. And we're obsessed with politics. And that's what we do. And that's what we talk about. But there's something bigger at play here. And that's America and the West. And by that, I mean the soccer mom taking her kids to practice. The dad getting up every day, going to do a job that he probably doesn't like, but he does it because he's got a family and then he comes back. The young people who want to get ahead with their lives and they just want an opportunity and a chance to succeed. The guy looking at the girl going, I want to marry her and one day be able to have kids. This is more important than people online talking and trying to be provocative.

48:44And we all need to remember that what we do bleeds out into society and we have a responsibility. You have a responsibility not to indulge in these conspiracy theories, not to be extreme, because it affects people in a way that is incredibly profound. To those people, you may feel like you're just ranting to a camera. You're not. People are watching. They're ingesting this stuff. and that's what concerns me if I'm being honest. Well, we will see how it all plays out. Everyone has a small role to play in it. We are going to go to triggerpod.co.uk where our fans are going to ask us questions or rather we'll take their questions and ask them of each other.

49:26So head on over there now and if you're not already a subscriber, we do think you're morally inferior. Do you think you help keep each other honest and how much do you think the fact that you somewhat balance each other out has contributed to your success.